I love it, I really, really do, but am I alone in dreading it, just a little bit because for me it means.....

[LadyOfTheFlowersXmasName]

Having to get up and start the dinner all morning, then sort the seating, then dish it up, by which time I am not even hungry anymore, the clear it all up etc etc...... while DH plays with the kids all day and drinks beer?

Anyone, or am I just a doormat or something?

Would like to know, that's all.
It's a lot of work laying Christmas on single handedly.

Start drinking whisky even BEFORE he starts drinking beer, and by 11am you'll be so twatted he'll have to do the rest.

Shared workload in this house.

dh does majority of cooking and I clean and tidy house

everyone pitches in to do clearing up

you are being a doormat

can your family not help out?

I'd be dreading it too if I had to do everything

I think some gin and a few tears before 11am might be in order

Oh i love it. I'm quite happy doing all the cooking stuff etc.

But, it helps that DH pitches in where necessary.

We have chocolate & coffee for breakfast. No cleaning up, we just throw the wrappers in the bin.

Then dh cooks dinner. I drink wine whilst we chat.

Then we eat.

I load the dishwasher whilst dh plays with the kids.

Then we both play with the kids & drink wine

Perhaps this is not addressing the point - but can't you do the traditional Christmas dinner in the early evening rather than aim for lunch time ish?... and have a kind of buffet lunch around midday?

You might find it all a bit more leisurely and easier to fit in this way

Whoever cooks, doesn't have to clean up the kitchen. That's rule number ONE. God created that rule at the same time he created the EARTH. It is all a gigantic pain in the flaps, though, innit. If I had my way, I'd spend Christmas Day in bed drinking a bottle of Baileys, watching the Season 5 boxset of 24 and communicating with the kids downstairs via my mobile.

rope everyone in....

this year I am getting ready chopped veg so tesco helping there (or maybe M&S if finances stretch)

MIL is doing the turkey at her house early in the morning or maybe overnight and bringing it to us cooked and readyx many!!

SIL is bringing puds etc, and she is fab at helping sort etc as she works in catering...double

DH is in charge of drinks all day plus he will sort breakfast in the morning and he has already said he'll do the potatoes (well, peel them for me ready), so another job jobbed.

and kiddies are gonna be bribed with helping do at least one job each to earn a secret stashed pressie (will be a new tradition started this year so not sure if that one will work

oooh........and for the eveing I am gonna use paper plates to save on that washing up!

"We're opening our presents now, mummy." "Oooh really how lovely darlings slurp slurp phwoargh Jack Bauer, crawl around under a car looking all intense again, grrrr."

lol @ lordvenger

I don't get it, outting up with uselessness in blokes.

It's a less becoming feature than, say, back hair, no?

In fact, I have quite a soft spot for back hair.

Now that's something you don't hear every day. Except, perhaps, in gorilla enclosures. If you can speak gorilla. Mind you, Mrs Gorilla's probably going, "Bloody Mr Gorilla, I spent ages making this fruit salad and he's just arsing about on the tyres. Still, are least he's got a hair back. I do love back hair."

Oh, do go to bed, Hunker...

outting?! outting?! putting!!!

lol hunker

I think a lot of people put an awful lot of stess on themselves over Christmas dinner. Does anyone looking back on their childhood remember what they ate?

Give yourself a break. Look at Christmas dinner just as a large roast dinner - and you can knock one of those out with hardly any effort. Add in an easy pud and you are done with the hard bits.

Guests can be put to work setting the table and washing up.

Scale it all back and make the focus of the day the DCs. if that means eating a turkey sandwich and foregoing the rest of the festive meal, then so be it!

PMSL hunker

hunker....you just made me laugh so loud I woke DH up....

he now snarling about 'bloody MN and the weird names and why is it sooo much more interesting than him blah blah blah'

maybe i shouldn't be on MN in bed

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a pic of a gorilla on a tyre?

I think I'm thinking of smaller primates. Or perhaps hamsters.

Sorry, Mr Psycho - NOW who's got the silly name, eh? Give him a slurp of LordVenger's Baileys (sorry, LV - needs must and all that, I've got a chap called Mr Psycho cross with me for disturbing his beauty sleep - bet he waxes his back, eh?).

Well yes, gorillas are too sophisticated for tyre play.

am choking with laughter hunker and mr psycho is getting rather bloody pissed off at me and also rather freaked by the name.....

better calm down or he may ground me from the PC

you see

and re the back waxing.....he will need to if he starts turning into his dad. his dad is very very hairy!!!!

eeek....that sounds awful.....

promise I only know cos he is a builder like mr psycho and i seen him topless on worksites etc!!

promise

sophistication doesnt necessarily extend to taste in music